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July 17 2015
The Story on the Road to Waterloo
Vampires Curtis & Emily may have each other, but not much else. After hearing a rumor about a necrophile in rural Canada who has discovered a cure for vampirism, Curtis & Emily embark on a roadtrip to reclaim their humanity, for good or ill.
That's the brass tacks of S.R.'s newest foray into comics, with writer/musician Buddy Black. The punk-rock vampire love story is a personal tale, bringing out the dingiest, fiercest, emotionally barbarous storytelling best from both of them. Check out a scattershot sample of the book here, in the top right corner of this very site.
Dysomnia
The Art of S.R. Ayers
S.R. Ayers has been manipulating a full range of visually based mediums to tell stories growing out of all genres for many years now, finding specific joy in the field of comic books, cover images & posters (and acquiring a fistful of publications & professional attention in his homeland of America).
After extensive travelling over the years he befriended Benjamin Schiemer (of the acclaimed Vienna music duo Pepperl und Effendi) while volunteering in Kolkata, India (2005). Since then there have been many collaborations on small projects, some a long-distance partnership (when S.R. was back in America), and some live and in person (while S.R. was visiting Austria –Benjamin’s homeland- and vice versa). And there was always talk of one much larger idea, which has finally come to fruition with the formation of the transmedial group The Ink-Wave Frequency Project.
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In my corrupted opinion I believe every story worth its weight in light, ink, paint, or time is a 'love story'. Love for a sister, brother, friend, self, sister, friend, parent, or intimate lover. Those are the best. I was pondering this while sitting at my desk, regarding my own stories like a proper egotistical fetishist, when I realized that 'intimate lover' was last on my list. It actually followed a long dry pause in which I had time to roll, then smoke, an entire cigarette, all the while being chewed at by the feeling I was 'forgetting one'. When 'that one' came limping into my consciousness I decided it was probably high time I carved some kind of self-serving testament to that particular path of love, lest I be judged as the bastard I may very well be.
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And this is it. Ahh Romance. Unfortunately the purity of essence in the 'art' is betrayed by the 'artist' on this one -gasp- but if I can't be honest about the junk that falls out of my head in the name of creation with you, the Holy Audience, what the hell's the point? Exactly.
The Ruse: the woman's ambiguous expression, swimming in the mote of your particular mood right now, is inspired by an expression I've seen many times on my Sister's face. Body language too. I love my Sister above all others. It's also inspired in part by a movie I'm quite fond of. I love movies. And music, and comic books, almost as much as I love my sister, and my friends (one of which was the inspiration for the zombie lover).
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I also love myself, and enjoy being me. I'd be lying if I said I hide these paintings away in the shadows until I'm coerced by my friends into swallowing my modesty and shyly pin them up for exhibit. These things normally hang on my wall behind my desk, in blazing glory, so I can turn and see how fun and cool it is to be me at a moment's notice.
So there it is. The explanation as to why there's only one 'romantically' themed painting hanging out with all these other love stories. I guess it's also an explanation as to why this one is so expensive to take away from me too.
Enjoy.
Romance 
Stay hungry for victory, is a piece I made for one of my best friends/chosen family. I feel like if you're not willing to craft the best possible propaganda you can muster with every creative resource available, regardless of 'talent', to tout the greatness of those friends/chosen family... well, you might need to choose some new friends/family to rally for.
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This painting was all for me. I was in the midst of a long dry spell of creative braindeath, and decided to rock my own charts with a (seemingly) simple, (guilelessly) clever homage to another of my addictions (classic horror movies). So I set upon the page with a concept & a vision, and soon discovered I was hopelessly out of my element in terms of realization & actualization, but I was not to be deterred. At a glance it looks univocal enough, but, at that time, this painting gave me a very specific feeling during it’s execution that I’m sure everyone can relate to on some level. -
Using every color at my disposal, every brush in the jar & every minute of a 7 hour, unbroken, tunnel visioned, painting daze I had the sensation you gather in your head, shoulders, spine & hands when you’re driving a car and go into a long easy curve going just a little too fast for comfort. Not fast enough to spark instant panic, but more of a slow burn of concern that, given the special equation of inertia/action/reaction in this very moment, if you loosen or tighten your grip, straighten up or give slack to your posture, do anything other than maintain the current momentum & trajectory until you finally come out of the curve, you will undoubtedly lose complete control of the vehicle and become an unforgivable wreck on the road (in this case, the desk).
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And maintain I did, until I pulled out through the other side of the bend and floored it. Now I can rock this kinda pigmented tomfoolery with half the colors, half the time & half the stress, but at that time I was completely ill-prepared to do what the painting called for. The exhaustion & mental static that was generated from this piece compelled me to create the next painting, as a revolt to the sensation I submitted myself to.
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This here’s a five page ditty I had festering in my brain for some months. And living with this concept, in the humid shadows of my mismanaged thought processing plant were a few bad ideas looking to push themselves into production for my waking life. After a strange and something-short-of-graceful transition of mind & body I decided to exorcise the lot of them, thus allowing me to breath freely again. Beyond lies the 4 steps to recovery (pencils, inks, colors & finishes) , in the guise of a horror movie opening scene/funnybook adaptation.from draft to final...
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Done during the American Bush Regime, I really thought that the possibility of catastrophic failure for the 'civilized' human condition was going to be pulled from the yellowed pulp pages of decades old cautionary 'science fiction' tales, and laid in our laps to deal with here in 'reality'. And I was sure that these people were going to be the seven architects of this apocalyptic global brainpain. I'm still not totally convinced that they won't be still.
A slightly new bent for me, in dropping the acrylics, and running full-tilt with only the ink on a vaguely thought watercolor spasm background. This is the first rather successful (in my gold-gilded opinion) blast of this technique, and the foundation of what might be my new fav form of image-based brain leakage.
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This one was not for actual publication on the genre-defining comic Hellblazer, but rather for myself, and the portfolio. This one is also obviously inspired by my misguided love of 3 diabolical mediums that all meet at relatively strange and dark crossroads in obscurely recent history. Amazing music, amazing comic books, and amazing cinema. On the corner of Avant-garde & Punk (just off the exit past Vanguard), I’ve nailed this, my own poster declaring respect & personal influence, to a rotting telephone pole.
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"Vampires Curtis and Emily may have each other, but not much else. After hearing a rumor about a necrophile in rural Canada who has discovered a cure for vampirism, Curtis and Emily embark on a quest to find him and restore their humanity."
S.R. Ayers and Buddy Black first met when Black commissioned him to illustrate the cover and liner notes his record “Witchfinger”; a concept record based on Black’s favourite film “Chillers”.
After working on Witchfinger, the boys both became self admitted “super-fans” of each others work. Several years later, when Ayers found out that Black’s latest record “The Story on the Road to Waterloo” was an adaptation of a self-penned screen play Ayers insisted that they collaborate on adapting Black’s script into a five issue mini-series.
Despite having never met in the flesh, the collaboration process was positively painless; both Ayers and Black agree that this is the most exciting project they have ever been a part of.
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Buddy Black (Writer)
Over the last eight years, Neil MacKay has produced/written/acted in numerous projects, doctored numerous scripts, released eight records, and played countless concerts throughout Canada, the United States, and Europe.
MacKay has been a comic book, horror, and general sci-fi/fantasy fanatic since he was single digits, and considers The Story on the Road to Waterloo his proudest professional achievement.
Check out more of Black’s stuff here:
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S.R. Ayers (Artist)
Raised (literately) all across the United States, Ayers’ only friends were his sketch pad, comic books and late-night horror movies.
After a brief stint in the military Ayers moved to Vienna, Austria and quickly began working as a freelance artist/illustrator.
Ayers spends what little free time he has devouring horror movies, post-punk b-sides, and performing as the resident live illustrator for the Austrian art-rock band Bonnage Horreur.
Check out more of Ayers work here:
dysomnia.deviantart.com/gallery/
www.youtube.com/user/dysomnia/videos
